


Four Times Thalia Awoke Too Late (+ 1 time she didn't)

by Ezzy



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: 5 Things, 5+1 Things, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-01
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-08 23:36:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezzy/pseuds/Ezzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just this once, she manages to save someone, and herself, and maybe even her fragile happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times Thalia Awoke Too Late (+ 1 time she didn't)

i. 

No one knows how the death of one demigod released another from their partial death, but that’s the only event they can attribute it to. Thalia supposes she should be happy to be released from her botanic slumber, but all she can think as she unfurls from her prison of bark, and falls to the ground in from of the dieing boy is I’m so sorry.

His eyes remind of a stormy sea, and she feels like a boat, lost among the waves of his desperation. He doesn’t want to die, but as his blood soaks the ground and is absorbed into her roots, there’s nothing she can do. As he stills, and falls into a final slump, she’s struck by just how young he is.

It’s that that haunts her, that and the way his arms reached out for help, much like how Annabeth reaches out for her when they’re finally united after so many years. Except Annabeth’s holds none of the anguish, none of the pleading the boy’s did. 

He could have been anything, she thinks. He could have cured cancer, he could have robbed banks, or he could have been the biggest damn hero the camp had ever seen. 

Instead he gets a brief funeral, with a plain burial cloth. Not even claimed in death. Grover is the only one who knows him, and the only words he can choke out before the sheer immensity of his failure is;

“His name was Percy Jackson.”

It’s a brief epitaph for a boy who lived too briefly.

The waves on the beach are tempestuous that night, as if driven to manic pitch by grief. Thalia knows she’s the only one who notices, though she isn’t sure if it’s the world’s way of expressing its torment or just coincidence. But on the night of the unknown Percy Jackson’s funeral, she sits on the beach and lets herself think it’s symbolic, and that she isn’t alone in her grief over a young boy’s death. 

 

ii.

He’s as handsome as she remembers, and she’s as beautiful, but she’s not who she pictured next to him in those rare moments she let herself dream girlish fantasies of white weddings and happy ever afters that don’t belong to half-bloods. But bedecked in white, smiling beatifically, and gazing adoringly up at the man Thalia always thought of as hers, on the day she always thought was for them, she has to admit Annabeth fits the picture of fairytale princess better than she ever could. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt though. 

Finally, her eyes meet his, and in her gaze she tries to communicate all she can’t say aloud. 

I thought you were mine.

So did I.

Then why didn’t you wait?

I did. Too long. 

She’s only a child.

No. You are. 

His eyes speak of remorse and regret, but not apology, because he isn’t sorry for marrying the woman of his future hopes in front of the girl of past dreams. For Annabeth, it’s the happiest day of her life, united with the two people who mean the most to her, though in very different ways. For Thalia, it’s the most painful day of her life, and all she can think is how she has failed on so many counts. 

 

iii.

She doesn’t recognise the boy, broad shouldered, stance firm and eyes stormy, but despite what age has wrought she recognises the women, princess curls cascading down her back and an expression that said she’d found her knight in shining armor. 

They don’t even notice that the tree they were standing under isn’t even a tree anymore, but a lost and confused girl who feels very out of place. 

For a moment she stands frozen, not sure what to do, and just stares helplessly at the couple who are so very wrapped up in each other, speaking a secret language with their eyes that remind Thalia of a long ago language she once spoke with a boy of her own, on their quest to stand where these two lovers are standing. 

In that moment she wants Luke more than anything, to take away this lost feeling, and make her feel wanted, feel needed, to not look at someone else in a way that speaks volumes about how necessary Thalia is to them.

She does something then she’s only done once before; she runs away. And as the distance between her and the lovers, one unfamiliar, the other achingly so, she calls out for a boy who once looked at her in that way. 

He never answers. 

 

iv.

Standing there, silhouetted by the dawn, the girl is beyond familiar. She stands there, with her back to Thalia, not noticing her rebirth, blond curls wild in the wind, and holding herself with more poise than any seven year old ought to have. 

Thalia’s heart almost bursts that the girl she gave up her life for is present for her rebirth, and for just a few seconds she believes the gods are not quite as cruel as she feared. It feels like she’s been a tree for so long, that she almost cries at the realisation that she hasn’t missed much. That she could pick up right where she left off. 

And then the girl turns around, and instead of those bright, intelligent grey eyes she had come to love over their dangerous odyssey to reach the mythical camp, she looks into the sea green irises and thinks she’s drowning.

The girl gasps, eyes wide, and turns and runs, leaving Thalia alone with the echoes of childish squeals that suddenly make her feel so very, very old.

“Mom! Mom! Your Tree!”

And Thalia is frozen with the cold knowledge that the gods are so much crueler than she could possibly have imagined. 

 

5.

There’s something so final about the way he looks at the crossing point, that it wakes Thalia from the sleep that’s already began to slowly unfurl its embrace from her. 

He looks different, and the scar on his face makes him look less innocent, but even though time has clearly past, she knows she can and needs to save him from losing more.

Just as he takes the final step, she reaches out she slowly transfigured arm and catches his ankle. 

“Luke.”

She doesn’t know what decision she stops him making, or what fate she prevents by her timed intervention. She never asks. Just this once, she manages to save someone, and herself, and maybe even her fragile happy ending.


End file.
